


A Song to Keep Us Warm

by punkrockloser



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3914968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockloser/pseuds/punkrockloser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The guilt washed over him, then, when he took one long look at his silver-haired savior that he couldn’t admit to himself he loved so dearly.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song to Keep Us Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song Exit Music (For A Film) by Radiohead :)

When Pietro showed up at his doorstep after months of being just a memory in the front of his mind, Clint nearly fell to his knees. His mind whirled with images of that blood-soaked shirt, the feel of the kid’s limp and lifeless body heavy in his arms, watching him disappear through the doors of the ward and never seeing him again. Now, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing to be true. Reaching out and feeling a solid, warm, breathing body underneath his hands crushed Clint with the unquestionable realization that Pietro was here and Pietro was _alive_. He sobbed. He sobbed until Pietro rested his hands against Clint’s wrists and pulled him into a strong embrace.  
  
Clint took him in, then. Placed him under his wing and helped him regain the strength he had lost. The subtle hum of vivacity that usually had surrounded the boy had been lost to broken bones and a broken soul. He no longer radiated with energy, and his movements were lethargic and dispirited. Clint always had one eye on him, not wanting to lose sight of the boy in case it turned out he was imagining all of it and he’d finally gone insane with the loss and despair he’d felt during those silent months.  
  
But no, Pietro was real. He hardly spoke, but his actions said more about what was going on inside his head than any explanation would. His dependence on Clint grew drastically within the first couple weeks of staying with him, and he craved the intimacy he had been without for all his life. Long embraces and subtle grazes of hands over hips and shoulders calmed Pietro down and helped Clint believe that maybe, this time, he could save him. Save him from whatever was eating the silver-haired heartache from the inside out.  
  
The night terrors were the only thing Clint couldn’t completely heal, and he hated it. He would wake to the distant screaming of Pietro in the other room and rush to the kid’s bed, waiting until he finally woke to comfort him. He understood the mistake of grabbing at his arms or shoulders before he woke from the horror in his mind, for it would only terrify him to a greater extent if he woke to the belief that he was being pinned down or constricted. Pietro’s eyes would be filled with absolute terror when he sprung up from his thrashing in the twisted sheets, glancing around wildly in the dark before coming to rest on Clint and just breaking down. Clint would feel the hard press of fingertips digging into his biceps and the wet tears fall on his shoulder as Pietro clutched him, used him as an anchor to the world.  
  
After Pietro woke the second time in the same night, Clint decided to take him into his own room. With the comfort of being held by somebody with a pulse, Pietro fell asleep quickly. Clint had stayed awake for minutes, hours after he did so, waiting for another nightmare or just to feel the slow breathing and relaxed muscles of someone who was usually so tense. To thread his fingers through the silver hair when he whimpered or twitched or his heart beat faster in the dark.  
  
The terrors seemed to stop, then, or at least subside for the time being. Clint always woke with hot breath against his neck and jaw, arms and legs wrapped around and entangled in his own, the stiff feel on his skin of dried tears. Blue eyes that held a world all their own let him see how tired he was, but also how grateful.  
  
They grew closer. Months passed without a word from the other members of the team, and Clint was thankful of that. They needed time together. The subtle grazes turned into compassionate hands on hips and fingers interlaced with one other as they walked together in the forest. The embraces turned to yearning gazes and lengthy conversations about something and everything and nothing all at once. Clint was happy, and he knew that Pietro was too, maybe for the first time in a long time. They had all the time in the world for themselves, and that was all that mattered.  
  
Then Fury called. A mission surrounding a nuclear reactor in Isar, Germany. Someone trying to repeat the Chernobyl incident. He knew Pietro was alive, and he needed them both. Team Beta, he said. What a joke.  
  
Bullets everywhere. Smoke, debris, ash, the crippling fear that something terrible was going to happen. Clint couldn’t let the thought go, kept getting flashes of Pietro lying motionless once more against the earth. The kid didn’t seem like he was doing any better. The two of them were backed into a corner, taking shelter behind concrete walls already crumbling with the amount of ammunition being thrown at it. Communications were down. The only way out of their certain situation was to take on the thirty odd men continuing to fire down at them. Clint didn’t have many arrows left, he just had to hope there were enough men in range of the explosions to at least get them away from their corner and back to the team.  
  
Pietro had taken a hit minutes earlier, right in his thigh. Clint wouldn’t let him go out in the fray of bullets with it, even though the damn kid continued to argue that he could take them, was too stubborn to understand that he couldn’t get past them, even with his speed. They’d tried that once. Never again.  
  
He sent an arrow flying. Heard the explosion, knew there were six men down, but shots still rained down on the wall, too much for a safe getaway. Three arrows left. He fired them all, in succession of each other, and prayed to whoever was listening that it was enough to get them out. He didn’t know what would happen if it wasn’t.  
  
The bullet fire stopped, and Clint felt this sudden hope in his chest that they were able to run. Back to the team, away from the dread that they weren’t going to make it, finish the damn mission and return to their life they had grown used to together, the one that didn’t contain the continuous threat of death. He glanced around the edge of the wall to gauge if anyone was still there, and nearly laughed with relief when he found nothing.  
  
Clint stood up and held his hand out for Pietro to follow him. The kid looked tired, the wound in his leg beginning to heal already, around the bullet still lodged inside. Clint walked out from behind the wall, more concerned with how his partner was walking than rescanning the area around them for incoming gunmen. A sudden, scorching pain in his chest stressed his dangerous mistake.  
  
Pietro’s horrified face above his, surrounded by blue sky and smoke, was his only understanding that he had fallen on his back. He couldn’t hear anything but the muted sound of his name being screamed in that wonderful accent he’d come to love listening to. All he felt was pain. Pietro grabbed his hands and brought them up to his chest, where Clint noticed how red they were. He understood he’d been shot, most likely multiple times, but his mind felt detached from his body. He couldn’t understand why Pietro looked so pained. Those calloused Sokovian hands rested on his face, and Clint noticed the change in his expression. His blue eyes turned hard with rage and determination, and then he was gone, the lingering pressure of his hands dissipating within seconds.  
  
The last thing Clint saw before being consumed by the soft blackness was a flock of birds soaring high above the battle below.  
  
He believed he was dead. All he saw was white. White ceiling, white walls, white sheets. It wasn’t until his eyes landed on Pietro’s sleeping figure and recognized the light, still touch of a hand around his own that Clint came to the realization that he’d survived the hit to the chest.  
  
He was angry. Angry at himself for not rechecking the area, angry that his one mistake caused this, angry that he had to put Pietro through something he remembered feeling all too vividly. The guilt washed over him, then, when he took one long look at his silver-haired savior that he couldn’t admit to himself he loved so dearly. He wanted to grab him and hold him and never let go, tell him he’ll never be that careless again and promise they’ll make it together. A different sort of pain settled deep in his chest, the kind that bleeds through the entire body and soul and entangles the heart in its searing grasp.  
  
Caught up in his thoughts, Clint hadn’t noticed Pietro wake. Not until his hand was squeezed softly, once, and he looked over to see silent tears falling from those relieved eyes. He couldn’t say anything before Pietro’s lips covered his own, his movements slow and calm, altogether a thank you and a declaration of something they have both been bordering on for too long. It was over too quick for his liking, but he needed some questions answered.  
  
Pietro had taken out the last two men who had nearly ended Clint’s life, and only moments later did Steve show up looking for the two of them, finding, to what seemed to everyone at the time, his dead body being clutched by the young Sokovian, distressed and sobbing against the side of his face. Pietro had fought against his captain when he’d been pulled away from Clint, wanting to stay with him even when he’d been taken up in the Quinjet. Clint had been taken directly back to the base, checked in to the ward to be prepped and operated on, for he was still barely alive when the doctors got to him. He’d been unconscious for four days after his successful surgery, during which Pietro had not left his room. It was only after Clint finally woke up that he was able to leave knowing he would be safe.  
  
Clint was cleared to leave the hospital after another two days. He met Pietro waiting for him outside the base with a duffel bag, and he acted on the urge to return the kiss Pietro had left on him those couple days ago. “I love you.” It left his mouth before he could even register it, but Clint had no doubts when it did.  
  
The road to their home would take some time, but being together and alive made everything that much better. As he drove down a barren road surrounded by forest on either side, headlights illuminating the dark pavement ahead and the hand of the one he loved entwined in his, Clint figured everything was going to be just fine.


End file.
